The rapid adoption of AI coding assistants like ChatGPT and Copilot wasn’t just about speed—it was a reaction to a hostile culture. A recent retrospective argues that while AI provides instant answers, the mass migration from Stack Overflow was accelerated by the platform’s notorious reputation for elitism and aggressive moderation.
Developers often report feeling ridiculed for asking genuine questions, facing snarky comments like “Have you tried Googling it?” rather than receiving helpful guidance. This created an environment where the psychological toll of posting a question outweighed the delay of waiting for a human answer.
Ultimately, AI didn’t just offer a faster alternative; it offered a judgment-free one. Without the toxic friction that plagued community forums for years, many engineers might not have been so eager to trust their code to a machine.
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